Columbia Bicycles

Columbia has been a pioneer in the movement of the bicycle industry, credited with many firsts and many improvements to bicycles and motorcycles over the last one-hundred and fifty years since it’s original founding by Col. Albert Pope in 1877.

Columbia Bicycles developed as a result of The Pope Manufacturing Company which was organized by it’s founder, Albert Pope, after attending the Centennial Exposition where he saw a strange two-wheeled contraption that caught his eye. His original attempts at producing bicycles were expensive and time consuming and his first wheel costed $313.00 at which point Pope began looking for a vendor. In 1878 the first manufacturing of cycles began at a sewing machine factory in Hartford with an initial trade catalogue that was only twenty pages long. The first bicycles were 60” high-wheelers and sold for $125.00 and afterwards a uniform pricing system was establish and just in time to see the model of the “Standard Columbia” be released.

In 1880 Columbia began to release a variety of models such as the “Special Columbia,” the “Youth’s Columbia,” “The Mustang,” and a few others as well as organizing the Wheeling Association which fought for better roads and cycling clubs and still exists today. Through the 1880’s Columbia introduced new models, more designs, and instituted a guarantee or “Warrant” policy as well as celebrating their success as the “Expert Columbia” became the first bicycle ridden across the U.S. (a trip of over one hundred days and 3,700 miles) and eventually around the world. They began to grow larger and release models that set even more world records as well as some “safety” bicycles and eventually acquiring a rubber works plant, a steel company, and the largest nickel plating factory in the world in 1892.

This expansion continued as new models were released and Pope began to put together automobile companies as well as building factories, forming the “Electric Company,” and purchasing over seventy-five different competition companies and putting them all under the name of the “American Bicycle Company” which he owned.

Pope continued to persevere with developing new models and technologies for the bicycle and the automobile, purchasing rights to certain cars and building factories and new plants with which to grow his business. In 1898 Columbia bicycles made what many believe to be one of the greatest (if not the greatest) contributions to bicycles and automobiles which was the development of the chain-less bicycle. This bicycle was shaft-driven with bevel gears (another patent that was developed) as opposed to the normal chain bicycles which couldn’t gain speed well and were often broken for sport by men and has been compared to the modern design of cars with regards to the chassis and engine position.

From then on Columbia firmly held their place as a premier bicycle, and eventually auto-maker, within the U.S. and they continued to break records with their bicycles as well as developing an electric automobile in 1899 that was used in the New York City Transit to ferry dignitaries from railroad stations to offices. Columbia continued to develop and grow up through the 1900’s and they still produce bicycle models today.